Chapter 5
5
Honey
Some June days felt like a slice of heaven. And this was one of them. Honey stepped out onto the back porch, just to breathe in the pungent fragrance of moist earth and tender plants sprouting from the ground. A cool breeze with the hint of warmth rippled through new green leaves on the apple trees. Like a much-needed mental health break, Honey tried to soak in as much as she could while she could.
Days like this begged to be spent outdoors. And yet, so much inside work demanded her attention today. It just wasn’t fair. But she’d put off too many tasks last week. Or she’d been distracted too many times. It was hard to remember. But Jewel and Cooper would be here around five and she’d hoped to make a nice dinner for them. Not to mention she still needed to get fresh sheets on those beds upstairs. Never mind her earlier manic imaginings of line-dried sheets scented with lavender, sparkling windows, bouquets of flowers, baskets of fruit, fresh-smelling bathrooms... The kinds of things she used to have prepped for when guests arrived. Back when she was younger and more energetic. Not that they’d had that many guests in recent years. Besides that, Jewel and Cooper were family.
She returned to the laundry room off the porch to put the wet sheets into the dryer. She even tossed in a nature-scented dryer sheet, hoping it would make up for real sunshine. To be fair, at the rate she was going, Jewel and Cooper would be lucky if she even got these clean linens upstairs before they arrived. CT had been extra needy today. Almost like he could sense her attention was divided and wanted to push her. Sometimes he reminded her of a small child who got jealous and unreasonably demanding when his mother was too busy.
“Honey?” CT’s voice called out for her as if to prove her point.
She slammed the dryer shut but left the porch’s back door open, securing the screen to keep out any critters. Since losing their beloved Piper last winter, they’d been dogless. As a result, raccoons were getting way too familiar around the farm. Although it was usually after dark when they reared their heads. And last night, they smelled a skunk. Country living at its finest. Their feisty barn cat Whiskers was a good mouser but couldn’t keep the bigger varmints away. She picked up the laundry basket of clean towels and walked through the kitchen, where breakfast dishes were still piled in the sink.
“Honey!” CT called out again, this time with an urgency that suggested real pain. Had he hurt himself again? She’d just bandaged up his knee after he’d landed on it tripping down the rickety porch stairs ... not for the first time either. She was starting to hate those stairs.
“Coming,” she yelled out to CT. “Where are you?”
“Here,” he called back as if that explained everything. She went from room to room, finally locating him in the downstairs bathroom.
“Yes?” She poked her head in through the open door.
With a childlike expression, he held up an empty toilet paper roll. “Where do you keep this?”
She pointed to the basket where she kept toilet paper in plain sight, then seeing it was down to one roll, opened a cabinet door, extracted a package, and refilled the basket with a couple extras. “Here ya go, CT. Right where it always is.” She heard the impatience in her tone as she handed him a full roll and picked up her laundry basket.
“I’m dumb.” CT’s countenance fell. “I forgot.”
“You’re not dumb.” She set down the laundry basket again and, despising her impatience, opened her arms to hug him. As always, he welcomed the hug, holding her close.
“I love you, Honey.” He buried his nose in her hair. “You smell good.”
She laughed. “I’m sure I don’t. But glad you think so.” She looked up into his face. “I love you too, CT. Sorry if I was impatient, but there’s a lot to get done with Jewel and Cooper coming.”
“Coming? Here?” His brow was puzzled. “To this house?”
“Yes. Sometime this afternoon.” She stopped herself from saying “like I already told you a dozen times.” Instead, she added, “And I’ve a lot to get done before they get here.”
“I can help.”
“Yes.” She pulled fresh towels from the laundry basket, folding and stacking them next to the sink to take upstairs for her soon-to-arrive guests. Hopefully CT wouldn’t dirty them all before the girls arrived. “Maybe you could clean up the breakfast dishes. That would help.”
“Did we eat breakfast?” he asked.
“Yes.” She checked her watch. “And it’s probably time for lunch. Could you make yourself a peanut butter sandwich?”
“I can do that.” He nodded happily.
“And have some milk too?” She knew this was a risky task, but he could still handle it most of the time.
“Yes.”
“That would be helpful.” She picked up the basket of towels. “I need to take these upstairs.”
She hurried upstairs, hoping she’d just bought herself some uninterrupted time. She was just hanging towels in the bathroom when she heard CT hollering like something else was seriously wrong. She knew it was probably nothing ... and yet. With knives and fragile glassware—and had she remembered to remove the stove knobs this morning?—the kitchen could be a dangerous place. She ran downstairs, calling out that she was coming. “What is it?”
CT was staring down at the floor with a horrified expression. His favorite honeypot with a bear on the front was now a shattered, sticky mess on the kitchen’s hardwood floor. CT looked brokenhearted.
“Oh, CT.” She tried to disguise her frustration as sympathy but didn’t think it was convincing. Not to her, anyway. “It’s okay. You go get yourself some more honey while I clean this goop up.”
“More honey?” He looked confused. “From the hives?”
“No. We keep jars in the pantry. Remember?”
“Jars?” Although he was the one who filled the jars and put them there, he still seemed bewildered. He’d obviously forgotten.
“Jars of honey. In the pantry. On the back porch.” She pointed that way. “That big red cabinet. Remember?”
He nodded with a cloudy expression, like someone trying to see some faraway place.
“You go get some honey, okay?” If nothing else, it would occupy him for a few minutes while she wiped up the mess.
“Okay.”
As she dampened a dish towel, she listened to his trudging steps scuffle toward the back door. Cleaning up shards of pottery and thick honey was a slow, sticky process. She was just finishing up the worst of it when CT returned. But the floor tiles still felt tacky. It would have to wait until she mopped the whole floor ... later.
“Found ’em,” CT announced, victoriously displaying two gleaming amber jars of honey. “We got lots of honey, Honey.”
“Great.” She rinsed off her sticky hands.
“Do you know how many honeys there are?”
“Not exactly.” She dried her hands on a fresh towel, then took the jars from him. “Do you know how many?”
His smile was crooked. “A lot.”
She pointed him to the kitchen table. “Now you sit down, and I’ll fix your peanut butter and honey sandwich, okay?”
He smiled. “My Honey is a honey.”
By the time she made CT’s lunch and was just starting to clean up the breakfast dishes, the dryer buzzer signaled that the sheets were done. Honey felt done too. She sat down across the table from CT with a weary sigh.
“Want a sandwich?” He held up a half.
She sighed. “No, but thanks.” She reached for a banana and set it by his plate. “I don’t think you had your banana today.”
He nodded as he slowly chewed.
Honey knew she should have a banana too, but she just didn’t feel hungry. Mostly she felt tired. But thinking CT should be safely occupied for a bit, she decided to get the clean sheets out of the dryer and take them upstairs. As she trudged up with the full basket, she sniffed the linens. It wasn’t a bad smell, but nothing like clean pure sunshine. Her favorite place to line dry sheets in the summertime was a clothesline CT had helped her string over the lavender field a few years ago, but at the moment, as much as she enjoyed that aroma, it felt like too much work. Maybe the girls would want to help her with that sometime this summer.
She was just fitting the bottom sheet onto the second bed when she realized she was slightly out of breath and lightheaded. She sat down on the edge of the bed and took in some deep breaths. Maybe she was overdoing it. Why not let the girls finish up in here? After all, they were young and strong. And she still needed to get some potatoes on the stove if she was going to make potato salad for dinner.
Honey wanted to make their first meal here special, and Jewel had been raving about her potato salad. Of course, it was more work than plain mashed potatoes, which CT would prefer, but the salad would make for good leftovers tomorrow. Besides that, she needed to get her roast into the oven soon, if she wanted it to be done on time. She wished she’d learned how to use that Instant Pot Jewel had sent them last Christmas. But life was so full of distractions, and she just hadn’t gotten around to reading the instructions. Maybe Jewel could show her. Her daughter swore by the thing, claimed it was a big time-saver. And, boy, she could sure use more time.
By the time she got back to the kitchen, CT was removing a plate from the dishwasher and setting it in the cabinet above. Honey frowned, biting her lower lip and wanting to scream. “So ... did you empty all the dishes?”
“Yep.” He looked pleased with himself. “Helping you.”
“But those dishes were still dirty.” She opened a cabinet door and studied the shelf of drinking glasses. The dirty ones were mixed in with the clean.
“Oops?” CT frowned. “Dumb me.”
“No, you’re not dumb.” She turned to him. “But you do look tired.”
“Yeah. Hard work.”
She still had to remind herself how he tired easily. “Why don’t you go sit for a while? Get rested up before the girls get here.”
“What girls?” His brow creased.
“Jewel and Cooper. Remember? They’ll be here soon.”
His expression was fuzzy, but he nodded.
“Go get in your chair.” She gently nudged him toward the living room. “Put your feet up. There’ll be plenty to do later.”
“Yeah. Good thinking, Honey.” He pecked her on the cheek. “You do good thinking for me and for you too.”
She forced a smile, then walked across her still-sticky kitchen floor to sift the dirty dishes from the clean ones and reload the dishwasher. She felt bone-weary as she got the potatoes ready to cook. Maybe potato salad was a bad idea after all.
But Honey continued to push herself, putting one foot in front of the next. Step-by-step, she got the roast ready and into the oven. She chopped onions and pickles and made dressing for the potato salad. Then she revived the green salad she’d made the night before and added more tomatoes, cucumbers, avocado, and lettuce. It wouldn’t be long before she could add veggies from her own garden. That would be nice.
Then, tired of the stickiness, she got out her mop and bucket and gave the old wood floor a good mopping, making the oak planks almost golden again. Finally she put the mop things away and went into the living room, where CT was quietly snoring. She sat down and attempted to catch her breath. She’d certainly been working hard, but she never used to get winded so easily. Was she just getting old? Or was something else going on? She hadn’t been to a doctor since her GP retired back during COVID. Maybe it was time to find a new doctor and schedule a checkup. Well, if she could find the time. Where did one go to find time anyway?